Before the Marines arrived in 1943, Waimea was a remote village — population 400 to 450 people — with one lightbulb and a single telephone. Before the Marines arrived in 1943, Waimea was a remote village — population 400 to
Before the Marines arrived in 1943, Waimea was a remote village — population 400 to 450 people — with one lightbulb and a single telephone.
When the Seabees arrived in December of that year, they set to work electrifying the community, setting up telephone poles and constructing some of the buildings still standing today.
Between 1943 and 1945, Camp Tarawa housed approximately 55,000 Marines and Navy Corpsmen. Today, the stories of civilians and servicemen are being collected.
“I believe we are the only Marine Corps League Detachment that has taken history as our primary mission,” said Jim Browne, a past commandant of the Camp Tarawa Detachment, before a presentation Saturday at Puukohola National Historic Site.
Camp Tarawa, Browne said, was more than its Waimea encampment and headquarters. Marines of the 2nd and 5th divisions trained for missions to Saipan, Tinian and Iwo Jima on 137,000 acres of Hawaii Island, stretching from Polulu Valley to Hapuna Beach along the coast and inland to Puhakuloa Training Area.
“People born and raised on this island don’t know anything about it,” Browne said. The history of the men who trained on the island is one that needs to be shared and preserved.
Kathy Painton retired to Hawaii in 2003, with no knowledge of her family’s connection to the island. Her father was one of the men of the 5th Division killed landing on Iwo Jima. In 2004, Painton learned it was at Camp Tarawa where her father trained for that mission. She is now the public affairs officer and historian of the Camp Tarawa Detachment, focusing on the “family side and fun things” of camp life.
“Local families really took the Marines in — made them feel a sense of family,” Painton said. Saturday’s presentation included photographs of Marines — and regimental mascot Roscoe, a full-grown African lion — mingling with residents, participating in rodeos, playing baseball in Waimea and watching outdoor movies.
The organization, along with its nonprofit arm, the Camp Tarawa Foundation, is collecting “uniforms, papers, books, pictures … things kept in boxes.” These items should not be thrown out, Painton said. “They should come home.” The foundation is also collecting funds for a proposed Waimea museum.
The national park has hosted annual presentations by the Camp Tarawa Detachment for the past four years, usually around Memorial Day. The park hosts other occasional talks and is the endpoint for the Detachment’s three-hour “Boots on the Ground” tours of Camp Tarawa training areas.
Park Ranger Greg Cunningham said the terms of the government’s lease with Parker Ranch stated that the land would be returned to its previous state when the Marines left. Because of that, he said, there is “not much left but stories of people who were here.” The Camp Tarawa Detachment, he said, tries “to get that information out there.”
Cunningham pointed to recently acquired photographs on display and said the group is looking for people who may be able to identify who is in the pictures. The pictures are a reminder of stories of real people, he said.
“If people don’t share, we’ll lose that important part of history,” Cunningham said, adding the training on Hawaii Island was, for some, the “last piece of America before they gave their lives.”
Painton will speak at 7 p.m. Monday at the Lyman Museum in Hilo. Admission is $3.
For more information on the “Boots on the Ground” tours, call Painton at 880-9880 or visit
camptarawamcl.com.
